


The Herald and Her Aegis

by aFlyingFinch



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers, Eventual Relationships, F/M, Gen, Mages and Templars, POV Multiple, Siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-08-14 17:00:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8021869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aFlyingFinch/pseuds/aFlyingFinch
Summary: “When Tevinter came for Andraste, it was Havard the Aegis who threw himself against their swords. When she burned, and he arose, it was the Aegis who carried her home.”Evelyn and Aeden Trevelyan were never close. Bann Trevelyan's only daughter was consigned to Ostwick's Circle of Magi from her childhood, and his youngest son spent his childhood more comfortable in barracks and tourneys than at his own family's table. Yet fate has a strange sense of humour, and drew them both to Divine Justinia's Conclave, on different sides of a different war. In the wake of the Breach, the two siblings are reunited, and House Trevelyan must lead a collection of misfits and defectors against enemies from this world, and another long-since passed. From the ashes of the Conclave, the Inquisition is reborn.





	1. The Conclave

‘Tracks go this way, messere.’

‘Then follow them, we’ll keep up…’

The Frostbacks had gone cold as winter began to draw in. Thick grey clouds hung in the skies above, and the ground was cold and slippery beneath the hooves of the party’s horses. There were a dozen of them in all, winding their way down the mountain between rows of fir trees and thick tangles of sedge grass, horses making steady, careful progress.

A man named Thornton was leading them on a brown hunter, a tracker in the garb of the Orlesian army. Behind him, and rather more steady with the horse, was a young Templar by the name of Belinda Darrow. A young noble from Starkhaven, she was sworn to the Divine now, even as her brothers and sisters raised their own banner…

Between the two of them sat Aeden Trevelyan, short dark hair ruffled by the mountain breeze, armour clinking slightly each time he tugged on his charger’s reins. He had come to the Conclave with his uncle and his elder brothers, to represent his ailing father, Bann Trevelyan. And of course, as the youngest, he’d been saddled with guard duty while his brothers mingled. Fine by him, although he’d have much preferred warming his feet by the fire to scouring the mountain roads. A single skittish guard saw movement, and now here he was with a quiet Templar and a grouchy hunter, not to mention the Trevelyan horsemen at their back.

Belinda wasn’t so bad, he supposed. Starkhavener, of course, but he wouldn’t hold that against her. She had fiery red hair, and arms like tree trunks… shame about the vows, all things considered. Thornton was a decent man, an Ansburger in Orlesian employ. Grouchy yet amiable, he’d been assigned to track their quarry, and he hadn’t led them astray yet.

‘Tracks go off into the forest ahead,’ the hunter called back, over the clatter of hooves. ‘We won’t be able to take the horses in there.’

‘Then we go on foot,’ the knight sighed. ‘You and me, Thornton. Templar - keep the horses, watch the road.’

‘Yes, ser,’ Belinda nodded.

They rode down from the road towards the treeline, pausing just short of it for Aeden and Thornton to clamber off their mounts. Belinda and one of the Trevelyan squires took their reins, as several of the other horsemen took their first chance for a break in hours. Aeden just grabbed his sheath from the side of his saddle - a well-forged longsword the only contents, nothing fancy - and shoved it through his belt. Thornton had already strung his bow and slung a quiver across his back, and set off quickly as the knight approached.

‘Bet you wish you were up there, rather than down here,’ the ranger muttered, nodding back towards the temple on the mountain.

‘Chantry priests, and half my blessed family. Even Tantervale’s better than that…’ Aeden grinned.

‘I like you, ser,’ his companion announced, with a chuckle.

With that, they passed between the trees, branches crunching beneath their boots, and silence set in. The ranger kept his eyes to the ground, watching whatever it was he following attentively. Aeden followed behind, all his focus on keeping up in full plate.

‘This way,’ Thornton muttered, disappearing behind the trunk of a great fir tree as he changed direction, veering off to the left. Aeden followed, tramping down gorse and grass with steel boots, and pulling his sword-sheath out of his belt to hold it in one hand. He ducked a large fir branch, glanced up again to spot the ranger-

‘Wait!’ he hissed, as a flicker of something moved in the edge of his vision.

The both of them stopped dead, a branch breaking beneath the ranger’s boot before silence fell.

‘Did you see that too?’

Thornton nodded slowly. Without making a sound, he put his shoulder against the nearest tree trunk, listening closely beyond it. The very faintest of noises could be heard over chirping birds and whistling winds - panting breath, some way away, and the crunch of boots on the forest floor. Aeden went for his sword, but the ranger steadied him, holding out a patient hand. As the knight twisted his head this way and that, trying to pick out the sound, Thornton simply reached for his bow, and nocked an arrow.

Quite suddenly, he ducked out from behind the tree, took two steps, and twisted around before loosing an arrow. Aeden heard it whistle between the trees, then… _thud_. The sound of it striking flesh, and a body tumbling to the forest floor.

Both men were after it in a flash, trampling down the undergrowth as they raced to follow Thornton’s arrow. Aeden felt branches and leaves break beneath his heels, a branch scrape the side of his face, a movement to his side as Thornton hurried past, and then, from up ahead:

‘ _Shit_.’

He caught up to the ranger a moment later, and spotted his quarry. There was a slender body on the ground, an elf girl with short red hair and blood spilling from the arrow shaft in her midriff. She was… young, he noted, tattoos tracing a slender face now contorted with pain. As the two of them approached, she was attempting to hold a dagger in one failing hand, the other clutching at the arrow.

‘Don’t… pull it,’ Thornton muttered quietly. ‘It’ll only hurt more, girl.’

‘ _Dirthara-ma!_ ’ the elf cursed - he could only guess it was a curse, given her tone.

The two men exchanged a look, uncertainty etched on both their faces. Thornton had another arrow in hand, Aeden his sword and sheath. Neither of them could quite bring themselves to draw, though. Thornton took a step towards her, and she scrabbled back, all the way back until her shoulders hit a tree trunk. Still waving the dagger. Spirited thing.

‘The arrow struck deep…’ Aeden observed, unsure as to whether she could even understand him. The shaft had indeed struck hard, sinking beneath the girl’s elbow so that only the fletched feathers were visible.

‘ _Falon’Din. Ma ghilana mir din’an…_ ’

The dagger-arm slumped, no longer possessing the strength to keep itself raised, and the elf’s knife went tumbling down amidst the half-rotten leaves and debris that covered the forest floor. Neither man approached, all the same. A few moments later, her head slumped down onto her chest, eyes rolling shut.

‘…shit,’ Thornton repeated, rubbing his brow.

‘What was she doing out here?’ Aeden murmured, still a little stupefied. ‘There aren’t any Dalish for miles.’

‘Everyone wants to know what’s going on up on that mountain,’ the ranger sighed. ‘I’ll bet you fifty crowns she wasn’t the only spy.’

A spy? Somehow, Aeden had never pictured the Dalish as spies. It made sense, of course. The events that transpired on that mountaintop would change the world, or so everyone kept saying. He’d believe it when he saw it, but the Dalish… well. Evidently they wanted to see it too.

‘What should we do, ser? Take her, bury her?’

‘Not sure I know how to bury an elf. _Do_ they bury them? Burn them?’

Thornton opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he said, it was drowned out by a roar like thunder, which knocked the breath from their lungs and quaked the ground beneath their feet. Aeden stumbled into the tree trunk beside him, only keeping himself aloft by clinging on to it, and when he wheeled back round, there was a green glow filtering down through the treetops. The horses were braying, panicked cries were echoing down from the road, and the whole world seemed to be rumbling as if the mountain were coming down.

The ranger set off running without a word, back the way they’d come. Aeden made to follow him, but he couldn’t match a full sprint in armour. He tripped and stumbled through a gorse bush, clumsily shoved his sheath back through his belt, and only barely managed to keep his faster companion in sight. Thornton burst out between the trees, scrambled up the low slope to the road… and stopped dead, staring skywards.

When he finally emerged from the woods, Aeden realised why. He tipped his head back, and saw the sky torn open. There was a great green wound burning in the heavens, a scar from which fire and starlight came raining down across the mountaintop. And beneath it, the Temple of Sacred Ashes burned. Pillars of stone were blackened and scorched, the temple’s great spires collapsed and sunken, fires blazing over the peak. Screams and clashing steel were already echoing down the mountainside.

‘Maker protect us…’ Belinda murmured, bowing her head.

‘What the fuck is this?!’ Thornton yelled, summing it up rather more aptly.

‘Back on your horses!’ Aeden screamed, to the men standing frozen around their steeds. ‘Turn them north and ride, damn it!’


	2. The Herald of Andraste

_Keep running. Go._

_Vivid green, and burning white. A flash of madness, and the embrace of stone. Muttered voices, cold winds, cold stone…_

Evelyn Trevelyan awoke with a gasp, to the sensation of cold iron wrapped around her wrists, and cold stone numbing her knees. There were voices around her, dark armour and orange cloth barely visible in the dim light, swords glinting from each corner of the room. Somewhere in the corner, she heard the steady _drip, drip_ of water on stone.

‘Argh!’

All of that was knocked from her senses by a surge of pain, so excruciating that it took a moment for her mind to register where it was coming from. General pain faded, giving way to a numbness in her arm like feedback from a badly-cast spell. When she looked down, she found her left hand wreathed in the same green flames that had filled her dreams. They crackled and stirred, oddly painless as the surge subsided.

She barely had time to _begin_ questioning that before a door on the far wall flew open loudly, admitting a frozen wind that chilled her to her bones.

Two women blew in with the wind, expressions stormy and calm and quite contrasting. The stormy woman was dark-skinned and darker-haired. She had thrown the door open, clattering it against the wall, and her armour clanked loudly as she strode into the room, fury on her brow. The other was hooded and pale, closing the door softly behind herself before folding her hands behind her back. As the armoured woman charged into the middle of the room, she stalked the perimeter - and the soldiers in each corner lowered their blades, standing to attention.

‘Who are you?’ the brute snapped, in a thick accent Evelyn couldn’t quite place - Antivan? Nevarran?

‘…I’m a mage,’ was all she could manage to blurt out, at first. Worryingly, the stormy woman - definitely Nevarran, she decided - didn’t reply, just glanced at her fellow with a meaningful expression.

‘That doesn’t prove anything,’ the calmer woman shrugged, accent clearly Orlesian.

‘Leliana.’

‘It doesn’t. Prove anything,’ “Leliana” insisted, before turning calmly to Trevelyan, and repeating: ‘Who are you?’

‘Enchanter Evelyn Trevelyan, of the Ostwick Circle,’ she answered breathlessly, now her faculties had returned somewhat. And then, her hand began to burn again. She doubled over screaming as it flared brightly, then burned out once more, leaving her panting on the stone floor.

‘And what is that?’ Leliana asked, as casually as if it were a simple oddity, not a blazing scar made of magic.

‘I… I don’t know, I swear.’

‘What do you remember?’

‘I…’

‘Be calm…’ she murmured, as the stormy Nevarran folded her arms with a scowl. ‘Tell us what you remember. Why were you here?’

‘I came here with the Circle. I remember… running?’

‘Running?’

‘You were unconscious when our soldiers found you,’ the Nevarran interrupted, stepping forward. ‘They say you walked out of the Fade.’

‘The Fade? How would that even…’

She trailed off, shaking her head. This was a dream. It was all still the dream with the burning green fire and the blinding light. She’d wake in a moment, to find herself in bed at the Conclave.

‘The Conclave is destroyed,’ her interrogator continued, barely-contained anger in her voice. ‘Everyone who attended it is dead, save you. Explain to me why we shouldn’t kill you now.’

Evelyn barely heard the last part. Everyone was… dead? Oh, _Maker_. The First Enchanter, Wyl, Serana… and the Chantry’s representatives. How many Trevelyans would have been there? And… surely that couldn’t include the Divine, too? There was no way…

Her hand flared again, bright green fire bringing searing pain - not quite so bad as before, but probably because her arm was too numb to feel it. She doubled over without a sound, clutching her bound arms into her body. When the burning finally subsided, she felt an armoured gauntlet close around her hand, as the Nevarran held it to her face.

‘Explain _this_ ,’ she hissed, venom in her eyes.

‘I don’t know what it is…’ Evelyn panted. ‘Or how it got there!’

‘You’re lying!’

Before she could reply, the Orlesian had stepped between them, putting a hand to her fellow’s chest and pushing her back with surprising strength.

‘ _Cassandra_.’

Well, that put a name to the other face, at least. The kind one was Leliana, the brutish one was Cassandra. As the Orlesian pushed her back, the Nevarran rolled her shoulders angrily, then bowed her head, growing a touch - if only a touch - calmer.

‘Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take her to the rift.’

‘We need her, Cassandra.’

‘I am aware.’

The Orlesian rolled her eyes and ducked out of the room, waving for the soldiers to follow her. The Nevarran moved closer, and Evelyn flinched slightly in anticipation. No blows came, though. Cassandra sighed quietly, and produced a key from her belt, reaching down for Evelyn’s manacles. They came free with a subtle _click_ , and a throbbing sensation as blood rushed back to her wrists.

‘The Conclave… what happened?’ she murmured.

‘It will be easier to show you.’

Her knees protested as she stood, numb and sore from too long on the stone floor, and her bones ached with cold, but she pushed herself upright and went to follow the Nevarran as she made for the exit. Bright light was pouring through the doorway, and she had to shield her eyes as she stepped through, blinded for a moment or two. When her eyes finally adjusted, she saw fresh snow on the ground, low stone buildings with thatched rooftops, mountains rising like a crown around them… and dangling in the sky above the highest peak, a great wound in the sky, casting down green fire like the Fade in her dreams.

‘We call it the Breach,’ Cassandra said, from off to her left. ‘A rift into the world of demons - not the only one, but by far the largest. And it grows larger with every passing moment…’

‘How is that even… what could _do_ that?’ Evelyn gawped. The Breach itself was… it was impossible. It throbbed like a beating heart, a green glow spreading slowly across the whole grey sky.

‘We do not know. But it will continue to grow, unless we act.’

There was a flash like lightning, followed by a great rumble that shook the mountaintop - as the Breach burned brightly, Evelyn’s hand burned with it, a fresh wave of agony shooting through her veins. This one brought her to her knees, and it was a minute or so before she found the strength to lift her head. The Nevarran was crouched in front of her, one hand in the snow, the other on her sword hilt as she looked her dead in the eye.

‘I do not trust you, mage. But each time the Breach grows, your mark burns. It may be the key to ending this.’

‘Do I have any choice in the matter?’ Evelyn muttered, breath still scarce in her lungs.

‘Of course. But the Divine is dead. The Knight-Commanders are dead, the First Enchanters… dead. The Conclave is destroyed, demons rain from the sky, and the mark on your hand is killing you. How long do you think you will last alone?’

‘…fine. Lead the way,’ Trevelyan scowled. The Nevarran just nodded, rising to her feet and striding off, with no apparent effort to wait for the crippled mage.

Evelyn pushed herself to her feet and made to follow. She still didn’t know where they were, and she didn’t dare ask, but they wound their way between more buildings of thatch and stone, through crowds of dishevelled and disheartened people. All of them, she noticed, were looking fearfully at the sky or resolutely at the ground, huddled around campfires or any other source of warmth they could find. And all of them stared as she passed. Some of them _spat_ , or swore, or scowled.

‘The people of Haven mourn Divine Justinia…’ Cassandra murmured. ‘They have decided your guilt.’

‘I wonder who gave them that idea?’ Evelyn retorted.

‘They need _someone_ to be guilty. Justinia brought mages and templars together in peace… and now they are dead.’

There was a tall wooden gate towards the edge of the village, and as they approached, she saw more of the orange-garbed soldiers clustered around it. One of them nodded to Cassandra, and hauled the gate open, allowing both women to step through. There was a mountain path beyond, curving to the right, bordered by cliffs on one side and a low stone wall on the other as it snaked up into the peaks.

‘Who are you?’ Evelyn asked, after plucking up the requisite courage.

‘I was a Seeker,’ Cassandra answered, simply, ‘and I served the Most Holy.’

For a good few moments, Evelyn tried to work out whether that was better or worse than a templar. Or, for that matter, how it could be said in the past tense. She’d never heard of a _former_ Seeker. Before she could wrangle with those questions, however, the Breach glowed bright, and searing pain coursed up her arm once more. Some mixture of cold, pain, and fatigue knocked her to the floor, and the next she knew, Cassandra was hauling her up by her good arm.

‘They’re coming faster…’ the _former_ Seeker observed. Evelyn just nodded, wordlessly.

They set off up the path again, and she couldn’t help but notice Cassandra was hovering closer to her now, as if afraid she might keel over or pass out. She couldn’t decide if it was more or less than irritating than the Nevarran’s fury.

‘How did I survive this?’ she murmured, shaking her arm to restore some feeling.

‘Our soldiers said you walked out of a rift, then fell unconscious.’

‘And your first instinct was to lock me up in a dungeon?’ the mage frowned.

‘You emerged from the heart of the temple, unscathed. The entire area was laid to waste… you will see.’

‘I look forward to it.’

The Seeker glanced over her shoulder, as they stepped onto a stone causeway that crossed a shallow valley. Peering over the side, she saw bodies. _Lots_ of bodies. Orange-clad soldiers, templars in full plate, robed magi… and blood, everywhere. Another group of soldiers was just crossing in the opposite direction, shooting curious looks at the Seeker and her charge as they passed.

‘Glib humour does you no credit,’ Cassandra muttered.

‘It suits me better than you, Seeker.’

Any clever retort from the Nevarran was cut short by a streak of green fire and a flash of light. Before she knew what was happening, Evelyn felt the stone crack beneath her feet, bodies and debris flying through the air around them as the path crumbled and slipped away. Her already-battered body was pelted with stone, brain rattling in her skull as she rolled, and fell, and tumbled… and hit the ground with a heavy thud. Dust and snow swirled thick in the air, and she wasn’t entirely sure she could move until she tried, pushing herself up on all fours.

The scrape of steel leant urgency to her movements - looking up, she saw Cassandra pull a longsword free from her belt, shield in front of her as she charged towards a dark shape now looming through the haze. She caught a glimpse of dead flesh hanging from a leathery hide, cold jaws releasing a death rattle that stilled her heart. A shade, not on the pages of a dusty tome, but hanging in the air before her.

‘Stay behind me!’ the Nevarran roared, rushing up to meet the thing with some bravado. Evelyn saw a sword flashing, heard claws rake against the Seeker’s shield...

She didn’t realise there was a second shade until far too late, as the ground beside her frothed and boiled green. Scrambling away, she stumbled and ran for the edge of the valley, feet slipping on raw ice-

And tripped right over the body of a fallen mage, flat and frozen on the ice. Twisting around, she saw the shade bearing down on her, hissing viciously, and her hand shot out for a stone, a weapon, anything. By some miracle, it found the solid haft of a staff.

Bolting upright, she swung it in an awkward, upward angle, not quite used to the weight of the staff’s metal head. She focused everything she had, and a burst of flame issued forth, scorching the demon’s head and jaw and driving it back.

Frustration giving way to aggression, Evelyn rushed forwards, hurling another bolt of flame, a third, a fourth with a flourishing twirl of the staff. The shade recoiled under each blow, then came back at her with a scream and a swipe of its clawed hands. She parried one arm away with the length of her staff, the other falling a fair way short of reaching her, then drew back and prepared. The monster rounded on her, and she lashed out with a long, vicious tongue of flame from the tip of her staff, clutching it in both hands and scorching the shade until it dropped to the ground, seeming to melt away into the snow…

Evelyn shivered slightly as the demon disappeared, adrenaline fading and giving way to the biting cold. The sound of steel on dead flesh brought her back to the real world - twisting around, she saw Cassandra backing up, shield absorbing another blow from her own shade. She charged forwards to help, but it didn’t seem the Seeker needed it. A wide swipe of her sword cut into the shade’s jaw, it recoiled, and she twisted around with surprising grace, plunging her sword into whatever passed for the demon’s heart. It fell with a scream, and slipped away into oblivion, leaving nothing so much as a corpse.

Relief surged instantly through the mage’s veins, but her companion didn’t seem to share it. The moment she caught sight of Evelyn, staff in hand, she rounded on her, levelling the longsword as she barked:

‘Drop your weapon!’

‘There was a _demon!_ ’ Evelyn snapped. ‘What was I supposed to do?’

‘There isn’t a demon any more.’

‘You want to bet?’ she retorted, jabbing her staff towards the Breach. ‘Besides… if I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t need the staff. I’m a mage, remember?’

Cassandra scowled, and in retrospect that perhaps wasn’t the most reassuring argument, but Evelyn was cold, and confused, and angry. Regardless, the Seeker nodded and sheathed her blade, muttering:

‘A fair point. At the very least, you did not run. We should continue.’ 

‘Yeah. You lead…’

 

* * *

 

The journey was longer than Evelyn had imagined when they set out. After trailing up mountain paths and crossing a frozen lake, they arrived at a set of winding stone steps that rose parallel to the face of a weathered cliff. The pulsating rhythm of the Breach was louder here, undercut by the sound of steel clashing against steel atop the cliffs.

‘We’re getting closer…’ Cassandra huffed, setting off up the steps at a jog. ‘i can hear the fighting!’

‘Who’s fighting?’

‘You’ll see! We have to help them!’

Evelyn didn’t waste her breath on anything so useless as questions. She just put her head down, and set off after the Seeker, taking the stone steps two at a time. Her lungs were bursting from the cold by the time they rounded the top, but Cassandra left no time to rest. She was already off at a run, sword and shield in hand.

The ruins of some Chantry building lay ahead of them, an outpost of the sprawling temple atop the mountain. Only one wall was left standing, a few jagged pillars rising out of the snow beside it, and there was a battle raging amidst the ruins. Shades were swooping through the snow, soldiers in blood-spattered armour attempting to fight back as magic flashed and flickered from a figure on the left. In the centre, a crackling storm of green light was raging behind the melee, like the Breach in miniature, and off to the right, there was another figure, but Evelyn barely registered him - one of the shades had already come diving at them.

Cassandra knocked it aside with a hefty swing of her sword, then charged past into the thick of the fight, leaving Evelyn to mop up the straggler. A burst of flame sent it back to the void it came from, and she glanced up just in time to see a bolt of magic flying at her. A hasty barrier spell knocked it aside, shattering a stone pillar as it ricocheted into it, but before she could spy the caster, Cassandra had cut through the wraith in question. It dissolved away before her eyes, like embers in the wind.

There was another flash of magic, raw and powerful with a roar like thunder. As a shade tore one of the soldiers to the ground, a bald elf on the left side of the melee stepped forwards, engulfing the demon in a wreath of lightning that sent it screaming to the ground. Her attention lingered too long, and she failed to notice the last of the demons rushing at her flank-

Until, that was, the solid _thunk_ of a crossbow banished it. The creature slipped away to nothingness, and a stout dwarf was left framed in the space it had occupied, a four-armed beauty of a crossbow still cradled in his arms.

‘…well, that was close,’ the dwarf grinned, roguishly.

‘Quickly! This way, before more come through!’ a brusque voice interrupted.

Before she quite knew what was happening, the bald elf had marched over, grabbed her arm, and dragged her over towards the crackling rift. Still gripping her marked hand, he raised it high, and she felt a jolt like electricity, shutting her eyes tight against a glare of bright, white light. There was a roar, a _rush_ of raw magic like a river bursting through a dam, and then a noise like a thunderclap.

When she opened her eyes again, the rift was gone, her hand still clutched in the elf’s. After a moment he released it, with a quiet sigh.

‘What did you _do?_ ’ she gawped, staring at the empty space where the apparition had been.

‘I did nothing,’ the elf murmured, with surprising calm. ‘I believe the credit is yours.’

‘I… didn’t do anything.’

‘Not knowingly. But whatever magic opened the Breach in the sky left that mark upon your hand. I theorised the mark might be able to close the rifts that opened in the Breach’s wake - and it seems I was correct. Ah - and my name is Solas, if there are to be introductions.’

Evelyn looked the elf up and down for a moment or two, not entirely comprehending everything he’d just said. He was ludicrously dressed for the snow now falling blizzard-like around the mountain. Green garb, with a jerkin of sheepskin but nothing else, and he was _barefoot_. There was a calm in his eyes, though, and a soothing tone to his voice.

‘Could it be used to seal the Breach itself, then?’ Cassandra interjected.

‘…possibly. It seems your prisoner holds the key to our salvation.’

‘Good to know!’ a third voice interrupted. ‘Here I thought we’d be ass-deep in demons forever. But, uh… a little optimism would hurt there, Chuckles.’

Solas raised a brow, and Evelyn twisted around to see the dwarf approaching them, crossbow slung over his shoulder and still wearing a broad grin that didn’t seem to match the frankly _dire_ situation. He was finely dressed, unlike the elf, although his shirt was open to halfway down his torso, and that couldn’t exactly be warm. She noticed he lacked a beard, too. Quite why a dwarf would shave it off in these frozen mountains, she didn’t know…

‘Varric Tethras,’ the dwarf continued, with a slight bow and a theatrical wave of his hands. ‘Rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong.’

He flashed a quick wink - not at Evelyn but, to her surprise, at Cassandra, who scowled darkly at him in return. For her part, the mage turned back to him and managed only:

‘Thanks, for the… for shooting that one.’

The dwarf squinted at her closely, as she took a moment to lean on her staff and catch her breath, the cold biting at her lungs. Eventually, he seemed to come to a conclusion, and muttered:

‘You have no idea what’s going on, do you kid?’

‘Not in the slightest.’

He gave Cassandra a reproachful look, and the Seeker scowled back at him.

‘We are _rather short on time_ ,’ she retorted, at the unspoken accusation. ‘Where is Leliana?’

‘Already at the forward camp,’ Solas answered. ‘And given this development, we should be joining her. Sooner rather than later.’

‘Fine…’ the dwarf sighed. ‘Just stick with me, kid. I’ll cover the basics while we walk.’


	3. The Wrath of Heaven

Heading up the mountain was… madness. Aeden had no other words to describe it. It seemed like half the Frostbacks were on fire. Green fire. _Green fire raining from a hole in the sky_. He’d never seen a demon before, only heard of them in ghoulish horror stories and the Chantry’s cautionary tales. Now, he’d killed one, a creature made of shadow and rotted flesh that had attempted to unhorse his templar companion. Belinda had stunned it, and he had driven his longsword down through the shade’s skull - the blade was still tainted black with an ichor that refused to wipe clean. 

They had abandoned their mounts further down the mountain, shortly after that attack. The roads and bridges had been shattered by the cataclysm, the ground strewn with rubble. Tethering the horses would be condemning them to the next pack of demons to come by, so they had cut them loose. The cost of a charger hardly seemed the most important thing right now…

‘The bridge is still intact, up ahead!’ Thornton called, returning around the corner of the path ahead of them. ‘Forces camped on either side.’

‘Whose forces?’

‘Didn’t recognise the banner. Flaming eye mean anything to you, Templar?’

‘The Seekers?’ Belinda frowned, confusion written clearly on her face.

‘Does it matter?’ Aeden shrugged. ‘If they’re not running screaming down the mountain, that’s where we need to be. Keep moving!’

Even as his men-at-arms set off on the march once more - some of them grumbling, some afraid, some just cold and following orders - he wasn’t entirely sure _why_ they were headed up the mountain. His uncle, his brothers, all the others who’d come with the Trevelyan retinue, somehow he already knew they were dead. A small part of him, however, felt the need to make sure of it, and to find out why the world had gone quite so mad. Perhaps these “Seekers” were of a similar mind…

 

* * *

 

He was amazed the bridge had survived at all. The blast at the top of the mountain had toppled the smaller structures down below, but this one, the longest and tallest of all, had stood firm. A long expanse of carved stone crossed the gorge from one peak to the Temple of Andraste beyond, with fortified stone towers on each end protecting tall, thick wooden doors. At the foot of the near-side tower, soldiers in steel plate and orange garb were gathered around with the appearance of a small warband - breaking open crates of supplies, bandaging wounds, sharpening swords. On the roadside winding towards the bridge, a banner with a single, flaming eye stood watch over dozens of dead, hastily lined in rows and covered with cloth as a Chantry sister knelt over them, muttering benedictions.

None challenged the Marchers as they approached. A few of the strange soldiers clutched their swords at the sight of them, and Aeden’s men replied in kind, but the great doors to the bridge were open, and stayed open.

‘We pulled her out of the ruins,’ he overheard one of the soldiers say, after another had waved them towards the bridge. ‘Swear on my life, I saw Andraste right there, standing behind her…’

‘Then why did the Seeker have her in chains?’ his sceptical companion replied.

The bridge itself was even more chaotic. Passing under the tower arch, you had a clear view all the way up the mountain, to the shattered remains of the Temple of Andraste - little more than scorched stone teeth sticking up from the earth, now. More soldiers were hurrying to the far side, clerics ministering to the wounded on makeshift tables and cots. As two ran past with spears and shields, he heard one of them ask:

‘Didn’t Lady Cassandra go up the mountain? Why aren’t we following?’

The response, if there was one, was lost to the wind. Up ahead, only two figures weren’t attending to the dying or rushing to the gates: a man in red and white with a black skullcap, the colours of a Chantry official, and a woman in leather armour, her back turned and her face obscured by a thick purple hood. They were leant across a table, shielding their faces as the wind whipped snow and ash across the bridge - and apparently in the midst of an argument.

‘This is madness!’

‘You have said that already. Several times. Should we do nothing while demons rain from the sky?’

‘And you think the prisoner will fix this? What if you’re wrong, sister?’

‘Then she will be dead, and you will have what you wanted,’ the woman retorted, coldly.

‘Arrogance. You have no authority here - not you, and not that thug of a Seeker!’

‘We have the authority of the Divine, chancellor. You know this.’

‘Divine Justinia is dead. Everyone at the Conclave is dead, because of _your_ prisoner.’

Aeden paused, halfway to approaching the pair, and listened for a moment or two, letting the pieces fall into place. The soldiers had a prisoner, and the prisoner had done… this? Looking up to the sky torn asunder, fire and demons raining down on the Conclave’s ruins, he could hardly believe a single woman could have been responsible for all of it. And now she was being sent to undo it? Madness, one way or the other.

‘Men and women are dying here for your foolishness!’ the Chantry father continued, voice hoarse and strained. ‘They will continue to die, all of them, until you order a retreat!’

‘Retreat if you like. We do not have that option.’

‘Excuse me!’ Aeden yelled, finally tiring of the argument. Both figures whirled around, the Chantry father and the strange, hooded woman, the latter furrowing her brow as a pale faced framed in auburn asked:

‘Excuse _me_. Who are you?’

‘Aeden Trevelyan. Son of Bann Trevelyan of Ostwick. Sincerely wondering what in the Maker’s name is going on here.’

‘An apostate-’ the father began.

‘Demons and hellfire,’ the woman interrupted. ‘It’s really rather simple. Are you here to help?’

‘I’d be going _down_ the mountain if I wasn’t. What do you need?’

‘Time. You have men?’

‘A dozen good men-at-arms,’ he nodded, gesturing to the soldiers around him.

‘Take them towards the temple. You will find a man named Cullen, the commander of our forces. Help him however you can.’

He nodded, pulled the sword and scabbard from his belt, and carried it in one hand as he set off marching for the far end of the bridge. Belinda was with him in an instant - the others hesitated, until Thornton and a few of the braver men stepped off. As they passed him, the Chantry father opened his mouth, his expression torn between hesitation and pity. He said nothing, though, made no attempt to make them reconsider. He just shot a scowl at the hooded woman, and walked away towards the healers and their patients.

 

* * *

 

Aeden had seen the Temple of Andraste up close only once before, on the first day of the Conclave. His uncle had led their retinue up to the temple doors, accompanied by templars and Chantry clerics, his three nephews at the head. Aeden remembered his eldest brother Perrin fretting about his wife back in Ostwick, half a world away, and their middle brother Matten wondering aloud if their sister would be at the Conclave, with Ostwick’s mages. In his current daze, he didn’t even remember what the answer had been.

The temple had been levelled by whatever blast had shook the mountain. The great domes and spires had crashed to earth, and whatever remained was bathed in flickering green light by the rift that seemed to spiral up out of the temple’s heart, into the heavens themselves. The screeching of demons and the clashing of steel filled the air above the rumbling of the sky - the fighting had already moved inside the temple’s shattered walls. Climbing the stairs that had led up to the temple doors, Aeden saw what had once been the entrance and antechamber of the great hall - now a flat wasteland, punctuated only by makeshift wooden barricades and the scant remnants of stone walls sticking up from the scorched earth. Where the enchanters and the knight-commanders had met for negotiations a day prior, snow and ash were falling over bodies reduced to blackened charcoal, as a group of soldiers fought under the glowing green gaze of the rift above.

They were losing. There were twenty in all, maybe two dozen, but judging by the bodies, they had started with many more than that, some in the steel and orange of the soldiers on the bridge, some in brown leathers and fur trim, others rather out of place, from a stubby dwarf lying dead on his back, to a red-cloaked man in a lion helm, maybe a chevalier. A group of archers were huddled behind a makeshift barricade of wood and stakes, volleying arrows over the heads of their fellows as they tried to form a rank with spears, swords, and shields, but a host of demons was tearing into their lines. As the rank quickly devolved into a melee, he saw rotting shades like the one they’d killed on the mountain, ghost-like wraiths that flickered like flames, and worst of all the risen dead. The men and women who fell beneath the rift, it seemed, were rising again with their weapons in hand…

‘Maker…’ Belinda murmured. ‘We have to help them!’

‘Yeah… right,’ Thornton nodded, reaching for his bow but looking unconvinced. Glancing around, Aeden could see the demeanour of the men-at-arms behind them, even if their faces were obscured by visors and helms. They were terrified.

Perrin would have had a stirring turn of phrase for such an occasion. Their uncle would have had a wry joke. Aeden had neither. There was no good reason to ask these men to charge against demons. There was no good reason for _him_ to charge against demons. Because they were slaughtering good people? Hundreds had died already. Because a stern woman asked them to? Where was she, then? This was, all of it, insanity.

With a rasp of steel he drew his blade, lowered his visor, and charged.

He had never actually charged before, much less seen a battle. Most of them hadn’t. There were a few career soldiers, men who took coin for brave work, but most of them were the younger sons and brothers like himself, noble boys who took up a sword instead of joining the Chantry, or becoming a scholar, or a steward. They fought in honourable melees against honourable men, rode in jousts and sparred with their brothers who were born to command. Trevelyan forces didn’t fight in wars. They certainly didn’t fight demons. As adrenaline formed a knot in his stomach, Aeden angled his longsword forward, and felt the world slow for an instant.

It sped up immediately. He felt the front of his blade sink easily into some kind of flesh without having time to see exactly what he’d hit, and as he drew it back to swing a second blow, he couldn’t even be sure what he was aiming for. He heard awful, terrified roars as the rest of the Trevelyan men charged into the melee behind him, swords and shields raised. His sword crashed into something tougher, biting against flesh or armour with a dull thud, and when he swung again he heard a hiss of anguish, saw something leathery and deep purple shrink back from his blow. The soldier beside him charged forward with an axe, shoving him off-balance on the way, and he could hear arrows whizzing by without ever seeing where they landed.

Something smashed painfully against one of his pauldrons, spreading a dull ache through his shoulder. He swung his blade back in the direction of the blow, more vertical than horizontal to avoid hitting the man beside him, and felt it cut into flesh. Gripping it at the mid-point, he thrust it forward like a spear, and this time saw the result, as a shambling corpse fell limp against the steel. Off to the right, something lithe and long-limbed seemed to spring out of the ground itself, an acid-green monstrosity with a formless face and long, savage claws. It tore the face off Allard Hawthorne, a noble’s son he’d known since they were boys, and killed two more of the soldiers beside him until the rest managed to hack it to pieces with swords and axes.

‘Shields forward, reform the line!’ a stern male voice yelled. Off to the left, the figure in the lion mask was pacing behind the line of battle, and up close, his attire looked much less glorious. The fur that lined his collar was matted with blood, the lion’s mane splattered with black ichor as one paw gripped a templar longsword.

Even as he shouted the command, his soldiers were pushing forward heedlessly, desperate just to be done with the battle. Three dead men rushed through the lines of the living, chopping down the woman in front of the maybe-chevalier and charging at him. Aeden saw the longsword glow for a split-second before slicing clean through the first corpse’s waist, twisting to parry the second - and clattering to the floor as the third ran its owner through the shoulder with a black blade.

The battle line had already surged forwards, in his moment of distraction. As the maybe-chevalier hit the ground, growling and grappling with the corpse that had stabbed him, Aeden darted back, and went for the second. He was too hasty, and his guard too low, but good steel saved him - he barely felt the blow as a hand-axe blunted from battle caved in one side of his visor. A moment later he had carved through the dead man’s neck with a wild swing, and continued forward. He stooped low to grab a fallen soldier’s shield, a black-iron thing with the same flaming eye as the Seeker’s banners. He gripped it tight in his left hand, and lunged for the corpse now snapping at the maybe-chevalier’s neck. The lower edge of the shield caught gaunt, starved ribs, flinging the creature back as he dove at it. He smashed it with the edge of the shield, then the flat, then again, and again, and again, until it stopped trying to get back up, and he was panting with the effort.

Off to the side, the line had advanced once more, his own men and the chevalier’s managing to hack down the last of the demons. He saw two of them spear a shade and drive it to the ground, even as the rotten flesh began to melt away. A hissing arrow banished the last of the shimmering wraiths, and an awful quiet fell over the hall. The rift in the sky above continued to swell and rumble like thunder, and Aeden could hear echoing screams, so slight as to be almost inaudible.

The fighting here seemed to have passed, and as the adrenaline faded, realisation followed. He had no idea who these people were, and they had no idea who he and his were. They were standing amidst dozens of bodies, most dead, a few dying, covered in blood and ichor that swirled around their ankles in horrid, dark red pools. Somewhere, far away but not far enough for his liking, a demon’s screech rang out. He reached up to his helmet, the ruined visor pressing painfully down on one side of his face, and ripped it off from the back of the neck, throwing it to the ground before offering a hand to the chevalier.

‘You have my thanks,’ a very not-Orlesian voice muttered, as he pulled himself to his feet and stooped to recover his sword. Fereldan? ‘Commander Cullen, of the Inquisition.’

‘Aeden Trevelyan,’ he sighed, every sword and axe blow beginning to throb painfully as the rush of battle subsided. ‘I don’t know what exactly this “Inquisition” is, but you’re welcome. We were sent down here to help you by… actually, I don’t who she was either. A woman on the bridge.’

‘Well… my thanks regardless,’ the commander panted, recovering his breath.

‘What now?’

‘I’m afraid we’re not done. Each time the Breach grows, more demons flood out of the heart of the temple. Better minds than mine are working on closing the rift there, but we have to buy them time…’

As he spoke, Cullen was leaning down to recover a thick metal shield from the fallen dwarf, and strapping it to his arm. Aeden glanced down at his sword, turned almost black by a thick coating of ichor, then began to do the same with his own looted shield. Across the hall, the Inquisition soldiers were beginning to form a rank of their own accord, his own men sliding into place between their spears and shields.

‘Too late to turn back now,’ he muttered. ‘Lead the way, commander.’


	4. The Temple

 

The rift swelled and rumbled, glowing against the pale mountainside behind it. Beyond it, the mountain fell away to a deep, forested valley, in which torchlights and vague silhouettes were flitting between the trees, fighting or fleeing or… something. Evelyn couldn’t tell. She was rather distracted by the torrent of energy billowing from her mark. It was like no spell she’d ever learned, a streak of acid-green so bright as to be almost white that poured into the translucent heart of the rift and swirled within it. It was simultaneously exhausting and effortless, and with each passing moment the rift grew a little larger, crystallising into something more solid as the whine in the air grew more high-pitched, octave by octave, until finally… 

 _Thoom!_ The rift exploded with a flash of bright white light. It looked so ragged, even organic, that she half-expected to be splattered with viscera, but there was nothing - just a gust of warm wind and a wave of pressure, like the rush of a fireball dispersing. The mountain fell still, the demons finally dispersed, though the shapes in the valley below were still shifting between the trees, unaware of what was going on above.

‘You’re becoming quite proficient at this,’ Solas observed, examining the space where the rift had been. ‘How do you feel?’

‘It’s… different,’ Evelyn panted, planting her hands on her knees as she caught her breath, hand still pulsing warmly. ‘Casting is usually like… reaching into the Fade, and pulling out a thread. This is like tearing it open and letting something else flow out. Like I’m not even a part of it.

‘More conduit than caster,’ Solas mused. ‘Interesting.’

 _Interesting_. That was all he said. Before she could say anything in reply, the elf’s attention had already shifted away, staring thoughtfully up at the Breach, and then back down to Cassandra, who was stood a little distance away in conversation with the scouting party they had just saved. She could see the thoughts whirling behind his eyes, but none of them made it as far as his mouth. Slowly, she became aware of another form drawing closer, as Varric collapsed his fancy crossbow and sidled up beside her.

‘Well… Bianca’s having fun,’ he shrugged, shouldering the crossbow.

Evelyn just cracked a grin, too momentarily exhausted to reply. The dwarf had a comforting presence, far more so than their other two companions. Solas seemed earnest enough in his curiosity, and stuck close to her each time they fought as if scared she’d keel over, but there was something cold and distant about him, interest without warmth. Cassandra threw herself and her shield ahead of the mage, but she was terse and stern, barely any friendlier than she had been when they first met. Only Varric seemed to show any actual _concern_ , and he seemed just as lost up here as she was.

‘So…’ he murmured, quietly enough that the other two wouldn’t hear. ‘Did you do it?’

‘Do what?’

He looked around at the ruins surrounding them. Oh. _That_.

‘…I don’t remember what happened.’

‘That’ll get you in trouble every time - should have spun a story.’

‘That’s what _you_ would have done,’ Cassandra pointed out, storming over to the pair. Behind her, the wounded scouts were setting off back down the mountain.

‘It’s more believable!’ the dwarf protested. ‘And less prone to result in premature execution…’

‘Eugh… keep moving. The temple is not far now.’

 

* * *

 

Indeed it wasn’t. At Leliana’s urging, they had climbed up and around the mountain rather than try to fight their way to the temple entrance with the Inquisition’s soldiers. They had driven the shades from an abandoned mine, mostly with the aid of Cassandra’s templar tricks, and had dealt with the demons trickling down from the mountainside rift, rescuing their scouts in the process. Finally, they had crested the peak, and then set about climbing back _down_ through the mountain pass, to the rocky shelf that supported the temple itself. 

If you believed the legends of the Fifth Blight, this was where the Hero of Ferelden had vanquished a high dragon and the cult that worshipped her, but nothing so interesting as dragon bones remained. A steep, slope ran from the mouth of the mountain pass down to the rear side of the Temple Andraste, and Evelyn imagined it had once been carpeted with snow. Now, however, the snow had been scorched away, the stone blackened and charred, as jagged scars of some black stone or volcanic glass jutted up through what had once been level, wintry ground. A light dusting of snow and ash was falling, but not enough to cover the bodies. There were dozens of them, as black as the earth and petrified just as they had been when they had died - running, screaming, praying. Without her ever intending it to, Evelyn’s brain wondered if she’d known any of these people, and her stomach lurched at the unwelcome thought.

At the base of the slope, all that remained of the temple was a low, sunken wall, as black as the stone beneath. Firelight seemed to flicker from the few pockets and corridors that remained, as something bright and green shimmered and spat where the ceiling would once have been, acid-green fireworks crackling in the air. A few thick, green threads rose up from the centre of the temple, winding together into a single rope that stretched skywards and twisted the clouds themselves into a slowly-turning vortex, reaching all the way up to the Breach in the sky above…

‘So, holes in the Fade don’t just accidentally happen,’ Varric muttered. ‘Right?’

‘In the Veil, not the Fade,’ Solas corrected. ‘And if enough magic is brought to bear, it _is_ possible.’

‘There are easier ways to make things explode, Chuckles.’

‘That is true.’

‘Once the danger is passed, we will consider how this happened,’ Cassandra interjected, with a dangerous glance towards Evelyn. ‘Until then, we must do what we can to end this. Follow me.’

She set off, sword still in hand, towards a low archway that seemed to sink beneath the level of the floor itself. Whether it had always been an archway, or had once been a section of walls and ceiling, Evelyn couldn’t tell - she could only see the dark passage beneath it, flickering orange and crimson. With a shrug, Varric went to follow the Seeker, and the two mages followed suit.

The passageway had sunk into the ground, perhaps under the force of whatever blast had levelled the temple, and Evelyn had to duck as she dropped down into it to avoid smashing her head against the “ceiling”. It took her eyes a moment to adjust too, as the green glow and blinding white of the mountainside gave way to darkness and crimson in the passage. There was a body just to the left, prostrate on its knees with hands clasped upwards in prayer - and petrified, turned to solid stone that was still somehow smouldering, a few wisps of flame clinging to the skin and refusing to be extinguished. It drew Evelyn’s eye, but something else had given Varric and Cassandra pause, up ahead. She didn’t catch sight of it until she came up between them, peering over the dwarf.

Evelyn had been an enchanter in the Ostwick Circle for several years. She knew lyrium. She recognised it when she saw it. She had never seen it glow crimson, though… Varric in particular was staring, transfixed, at a cluster of blood-red rock that seemed to burst through the stone wall like a blister.

‘That’s… not good,’ he whispered.

‘I see it, Varric,’ Cassandra sighed, already in the process of moving ahead.

‘But what’s it _doing_ here?’ the dwarf persisted.

‘Whatever magic opened the Breach may have… drawn on lyrium beneath the temple?’ Solas guessed. ‘Corrupted it, perhaps?’

‘I’ve seen it before. It’s evil,’ Varric hissed. ‘Just… whatever you do, don’t touch it.’

The others nodded, and they moved on through the low, cramped corridor. Cassandra lead the way, shield raised protectively, and their boots sunk into a thin layer of debris and ash that cluttered the floor of what Evelyn was now sure had been an ordinary stone passage. The corridor twisted left, then right, widening out into open air once more.

‘Anyone else hear that?’ Varric muttered. ‘Footsteps.’

‘I don’t-’

‘Cassandra!’

Evelyn wheeled around, almost taking Solas’ eye out with her staff as she angled it towards the intruding voice… and lowered it abruptly on recognising Leliana’s shape, stepping into view behind them. She could feel her ears reddening in embarrassment, but perhaps she could blame that on the cold?

‘What are you doing here?’ Cassandra frowned, as more shapes came into view behind Leliana - half a dozen or more, scouts in leather and hide, with bows strung and ready.

‘Helping you, of course.’

‘You were _supposed_ to be helping Cullen,’ the Seeker fretted. ‘He needs reinforcements.’

‘And he has them. Now, so do you. Or were you intending to close the Breach with just the four of you?’

‘Well, now that you mention it…’ Varric grinned. Leliana rolled her eyes, and gestured ahead, to the end of the corridor.

The passageway opened out onto a raised ledge that seemed to overlook a snowy courtyard - though at one point it might have been a grand hall or a receiving room, it was hard to tell in in its ruined state. Two sides of the courtyard had been replaced with the same jagged walls of obsidian that had torn through the temple exterior, and the raised walkway around the outside soon collapsed into a sloping, almost natural path where the stones had been obliterated, which circled down into the base of the courtyard below. Most foreboding of all, a jagged green rift hovered some twenty feet above the centre of the courtyard, the size of a house and crackling with energy, wisps of flame-like green drifting off it into the cold air. From here, you could see the thick, dark strands that poured off this larger rift, all the way up towards the Breach…

‘And how exactly were you expecting me to get up there?’ Evelyn murmured, staring up at the tear in the sky. It was bigger now than it had been when they entered the mines, growing with each thunderous outburst that shook the mountain.

‘Focus on the rift below, not the Breach,’ Solas replied. ‘It was the first, and remains the largest. Seal it, and we may seal the Breach as well.’

‘ _May?_ ’

‘May. Nothing about this situation is certain.’

‘Wonderful…’

‘Leliana, line your archers along the balcony,’ Cassandra instructed. ‘Varric, you too. Solas, stay close to the prisoner.’

‘And what should the “prisoner” do?’ Evelyn asked, attempting to scowl at the Seeker as best she could - the expression didn’t come naturally.

‘Whatever you did before. We will protect you as best we can.’

She just nodded, unable to think of a witty retort given the fear gripping at her insides. For a fraction of a second, she saw the same look of fear and doubt on Cassandra’s face - just for an instant, and she wasn’t sure if it encouraged or unnerved her. A nod from Leliana, however, seemed to harden the Seeker’s resolve, and she beckoned to the two mages before turning on her heel, and making her way down into the courtyard.

As they walked, the path dipping lower and lower as the flagstones gave way to broken rubble and a slope of dirt, the scouts were readying on the balcony above. She could hear them reaching for arrows and notching them, testing bowstrings and shuffling into position. Bianca gave a tell-tale metallic clunk as Varric steadied her - _it_ \- against the stone railing, and Evelyn’s fingers tightened slightly on her staff.

‘The rift appears… dormant,’ Solas observed, curiously. ‘For now, at least. Perhaps it must be opened before it can be sealed completely?’

_‘Now is the hour of our victory. Bring forth the sacrifice…’_

As one, the three of them froze. They were almost to the base of the courtyard when the deep, growling voice rang out. Evelyn looked to her companions, and found them staring back at her.

‘You… heard that as well?’ Cassandra murmured, slowly. The two mages nodded.

_‘Keep the sacrifice still.’_

_‘Why are you doing this? Someone, help me!’_ a second voice pleaded - female, Orlesian, and deathly afraid. It caused Cassandra’s head to snap back around to the rift, eyes wide.

‘That was Divine Justinia’s voice,’ she frowned, looking back and forth from Evelyn to the rift expectantly. As if she knew what the _fuck_ was going on.

‘What are we hearing?’ Leliana shouted from the balcony. Around her, the soldiers were looking frightened, confused, bows lowered uncertainly.

‘At a guess?’ Solas yelled back, ‘Whoever created the Breach!’

_‘What’s going on here?’_

Evelyn froze again, just as she had been about to step forward. It was rather disconcerting, to hear your own voice echo in the air without your lips moving. Cassandra was staring at her again, wild-eyed and clearly uncomfortable in his confusion. Solas, however, had hardened, his jaw set determinedly.

‘That was-’ the Seeker began.

‘Forward!’ the elf interrupted, grabbing Evelyn by the arm. ‘Forward, quickly!’

He practically dragged her down the last of the slope before Cassandra could intervene. As it levelled out into the rubble-strewn floor of the courtyard she broke away, took a few faltering steps forward herself… and collapsed to her knees as the mark flared, bright and piercing and painful enough to cut through the numbness of her hand. Without ever meaning to, she let out a grunt of pain - and once again, heard her own voice speaking clear and true even as she clenched her jaw shut.

 _‘What’s going on here?’_ her own voice repeated, more angrily this time. Shapes were swirling in the great rift, flickers of shadow and firelight. She could see a figure wreathed in darkness, holding aloft another, smaller form, bound in red.

 _‘Get out of here, run!’_ the Divine’s voice shouted. _‘You have to warn them!’_

 _‘Intruder…’_ the original voice growled, low and hateful. _‘Kill the mage!’_

‘What is going on-’ Cassandra began, but she was drowned out an instant later as the rift swelled, and:

 _Thoom!_ Evelyn’s hand burned as if gripping a red-hot poker, and the rift swelled to almost twice its original size, looming menacingly over the courtyard and crackling like a thunderstorm. The shadows and spectres had been banished by the warm wind, but even as she tried to push herself to her feet again, Evelyn could feel a pair of eyes peering back at her, hungrily.

‘Something’s coming through!’ Solas yelled.

‘Inquisition, stand ready!’

Something large, and heavy, and pallid purple dropped out of the rift with a flash of light, crashing down onto one knee and emitting a low, guttural growl. Evelyn had never seen a pride demon before. She had read of them, of course, in dusty tomes and treatises. She even knew a handful of mages who claimed to have faced one in their Harrowing. But seen one? Never. It was an immense creature, with skin like stone and a hide covered in spurs and spikes across the spine, the shoulders, the back of the head and arms. Four twisting horns spiralled straight up from a reptilian head, with a blunt snout and nine awful eyes like little black diamonds. In hindsight, she really should have focused on the massive hands and massive claws first - because they were swinging down towards her.

Before she could react, something interposed itself between her and the demon. There was a loud ring of metal as Cassandra’s shield took the blow, and a hiss of pain from the pride demon as she carved two black sword-stripes in its belly. A moment later it had thrown to her one side, but jet-black ichor was dripping from its gut, and arrows were beginning to sink into its hide as Leliana’s archers opened fire. Evelyn raised her staff as it readied another blow, but the demon’s fist met a shimmering barrier in the air before it could strike her, and it stumbled backwards.

‘Focus on the rift,’ Solas murmured, stepping past her and clutching his battered staff. ‘We have this.’

She nodded, and darted off to one side as he swung a spell-blast at the demon. Now she had a proper view of the rift, she could see it swelling and warping, casting off bolts like lightning as smaller shapes began to follow the pride demon through. Rotting shades came drifting into the courtyard, translucent wraiths beside them, as if summoned by blood and terror. 

Now, she realised, was the best chance she had of escaping. Who could blame her for it, really? There were demons everywhere, a burning hole in the sky, and the air was thick with bolts and arrows. Her captors were distracted - kind as a few of them had been, she was still very aware that she had met them in shackles. Why should she care if they died, a small and bitter part of her mind asked?

She didn’t run, though. Tightening her grip on her staff, she stepped forward towards the rift. The mark on her hand was throbbing painfully, burning each time the rift shifted, and even as she marched forward, she was terrified. She had no idea what this was, or what it would do, if it would even work. What if it opened the rift further? What if, that terrible cynical part of her mind asked, it was the “sacrifice” the voice in the rift had spoken of? Was she to die here with First Enchanter Lydia and her friends from the Circle?

‘Watch out!’ a voice yelled, breaking her out of her rather dire inner monologue. Two rotting shades came swooping towards her, gaunt hands outstretched. Before she could even react, she heard the thud of a repeating bolt, as Varric buried a shot in one of their backs and sent the creature down, screaming, clutching at the earth as it slipped away. The other darted in towards her, but she pushed it back with the tail end of her stolen staff, yelled an incantation, and watched with some satisfaction as it exploded into flame, scattering burning gore and ichor in all directions.

Up on the balcony, she could see several of the scouts drawing blades to hold off the shades now climbing towards them, even as the rest continued to volley arrows at the pride demon. The big beast was raining down blows onto Cassandra’s shield, but as her guard finally buckled, forcing her to her knees, the creature was denied a killing blow - Solas stepped into view, calmly swinging a hand and sending a boulder the size of a horse careening into its back, seemingly summoned out of nowhere. He was… intriguing, the elf. His casting was languid and calm, fluid motions unlike any she’d seen among the Circle mages, without an ounce of swagger or showing off. She would have taken him for Dalish, but he lacked the tattoos… where had he learned this magic of his?

The pride demon let out a furious roar, somewhat resembling a pincushion as the scouts filled its back with arrows, and Evelyn’s mind returned to her task. The rift was just ahead of her, opaque and glowing now, not the translucent green it had been before. The vortex above was gathering speed, twisting and whirling like a hurricane all the way up to the Breach.

She took a deep breath, focused on her burning palm, and thrust it forwards, focusing all the mana she had left. The walls of the Fade seemed to stretch, and twist… and tear, as the torrent flowed forth.

The mountainside rift had been easy. A few seconds was all it took for the rift to swell, and grow, and burst. This one was different. She counted eight seconds, nine, ten, and the mark was still billowing forth. The rift almost seemed to be pushing back, a subtle resistance against her efforts, and the vortex above gathered speed, whirling ever-faster as the rift crackled like lightning. Panicking, she tried to pull back, fearful of making it even larger, but the river was flowing, and nothing would stop it now.

Another terrible roar rang out, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the pride demon trying to claw its way over to her. Solas blocked its first effort, and as it tried to charge right _through_ the elf, she saw Cassandra dive at it, shield abandoned and hacking at one of its giant legs as arrows continue to stud its hide. As her arm grew numb, she realised what was happening to the demons. A glowing wraith that had just broken free of the rift was scattered like smoke on the wind, as the rift seemed to contract and pull inwards.

An acid-green tendril reached out for the pride demon, caressing its arm before pulling tight like a noose. A second joined it, then a third, the creature howling and snarling as the rift tried to pull it back to the world of demons. She could almost _hear_ its claws breaking stone as they dug in, trying to fight the pull of the rift, but it was being dragged back, inch by inch. A lone shade tried to claw its way towards her, perhaps thinking to stop her if it thought at all, but it was scattered into motes of green light before it got half way. The rift was shimmering and pulsating now, a high-pitched whine echoing around the courtyard as if it was groaning, fit to burst.

Pride let out another snarl, straining against its bonds - and in the moment of terror that gripped Evelyn’s stomach, it managed to break free. It stomped past Solas before he could react, each of the nine black diamonds fixated on her, and lunged into the air, leaving the ground altogether as it swung for her. The rift groaned, Pride hung motionless into the air… and then, as if pulled by some great weight of inertia, it was dragged back into the rift, still clawing and screaming.

As it swallowed Pride, the rift swelled to its largest yet, and gave an unearthly howl that rose to an ear-piercing pitch, before it exploded. Evelyn felt her arm drop, leaden and numb, a half-second before a wave of heat and pressure slammed her onto her back on the stones. The world was deafeningly loud, then eerily silent… and then just black.


	5. Haven

_'How is the prisoner, Solas?’_

_‘She will live, Seeker. I believe she will even wake. She is to remain “the prisoner”, I take it?’_

_‘If you have something to say, be plain about it.’_

_‘The mark, this… power she possesses. It certainly bears some relation to the Breach, but to_ open _it? That would take a power I have never witnessed among the People, or your people. I do not believe she is responsible.’_

_‘Clearly, the Chantry disagrees.’_

_‘The senile priest? He was not in the temple with us, Cassandra. He did not see the things we saw, nor hear the things we heard said. And after what she did, I can’t imagine I’m the only one to have doubts.’_

_‘…you are not. It may, however, be beyond our control.’_

_‘Why? It seems to me we hold all the power in this situation.’_

_‘So we should abuse it?’_

_‘So we should be_ prudent _with it… think on it, Seeker. In the meantime, we should let her rest. She’s in no state to give an answer, even if she wished to…’_

* * *

Everything hurt. That was the only thing Evelyn could think, as she woke. Her eyes hurt, her head hurt, her chest and her ribs were aching - and her arm felt like it had been struck with lightning. There was something soft and vaguely bed-like under her, so that was an improvement on the stone floor of the cell last time, at least. 

The ceiling was… wood? That didn’t tell her much. It was nice wood, at least, good solid timber. She could hear a fire crackling, but the room was still cold, the hairs on her arms standing on end. She was still wearing the clothes she had worn on the mountainside, a muddle of mage robes and noble attire that had been chosen for negotiating, not fighting demons. The tunic and breeches were stiff, and probably none too fragrant, and the half-robe wrapped around them was torn in places, barely holding together.

Far later than she should have done, she realised there was someone in the room with her. She could hear shallow breathing, and the slight creak of a heavy form in a too-small chair. Peeking out of the corner of her eye, she saw the rest of the room, small and cramped, and a man slouched asleep in a chair by the door, broad shoulders hidden under a heavy cloth shirt that was far too open at the collar for how cold the room was.

It took her longer than she cared to admit to realise the man was her brother. And she would never admit, even to her dying day, that she would have much preferred to see one of her other brothers at that moment. Perrin had always been the eldest, wise and calm, and protective, even after she joined the Circle. Matten had been the closest to her, always ready with a joke or a smile. Aeden had been the closest in age, but never in spirit. When they were very young, her rambunctious youngest brother delighted in teasing and tormenting her, and after she joined the Circle, she rarely saw him on the occasions she was allowed out of the Circle. Perrin would always attend Lord Such-and-Such’s gala, or Aunt Lucille’s dinners, and Matten would tag along for the chance to see her. Aeden would avoid such occasions like the plague, just as their uncle did. As a teenager, she had never been sure if he hated the formalities, or her, or perhaps both. He’d grown since the last time she saw him - or rather, the last time he was forced to see her. He was bigger, and taller, and his hair was shorter, sheared close to the skin. It was odd to see him resting, too. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him asleep before.

‘Brother?’ she murmured, quietly.

He woke the instant she spoke, slate-grey eyes springing open and staring at her for a good ten seconds. He opened his mouth… then closed it again, rubbed his eyes, stared for a few more moments…

‘You’re alive,’ he said, quietly. ‘Shit, you’re alive!’

Before she could really respond, he had risen from the chair, crossed the room in a stride, and pulled her into a crushing hug, up off the bed. She gripped the back of his shirt with her good hand, and buried her face in his chest, just happy to see a familiar face. It was a minute or two before either of them spoke.

‘Aeden,’ she whispered. ‘Where are the others? Where are Perrin, and Matten, and Uncle Bran?’

He pulled back, and she instantly regretted asking as she saw the pained expression cross his face. Worst of all, she wasn’t sure what had caused it - harsh memory, or the hurt that her first thought had been to ask after the others.

‘They’re… gone,’ Aeden shrugged, after a moment. ‘Just gone.’

‘Wait,’ she frowned, as a terrible thought hit her. ‘Then how are you here? This isn’t a dream, is it?’

He chuckled sadly, and muttered: ‘If it was a dream, do you really think you’d be seeing me?’

The silence spoke volumes. A few awkward moments passed, and Evelyn suspected they were both fighting urge to just break down and cry.

‘An intruder slipped away from the Vashoth at the Conclave,’ he sighed. ‘They sent some of our men to ride her down. I went with them. We were still in the valley when it… happened.’

‘An intruder? Aeden, we still don’t know who did this-’

‘Well, if your grand villain was a skinny Dalish girl, we solved the problem for you,’ he grunted, rubbing his face with one hand. ‘Otherwise, probably not your culprit.’

She nodded, and they lapsed into silence again, as Evelyn pushed herself up into a sitting position and looked around. The room really was tiny, a wooden shack with a flickering hearth and a cooking pot to one side, a small writing desk and a scarcely-used bookshelf to the other. There was a rack up in one corner of the ceiling, like the one their gamekeeper in Ostwick had hung rabbits and pheasants from, but it was empty now.

‘Where are we?’ she asked, finally.

‘Haven. A little village in the foothills below the temple. The Inquisition brought you here, they said you collapsed on the mountain? I think they’ve taken the place over…’

‘Who _are_ the Inquisition? Have you ever heard of them?’

‘Only since the mountain exploded. They won’t give me a straight answer, best I can tell is they’re from the Chantry, but they’re not _with_ the Chantry. Leliana and the grumpy one said they used to work for the Divine, and there’s a bunch of templars around.’

Another moment of silence, as she wrestled with the question now at the forefront of her mind.

‘…Aeden?’

‘Yes?’

‘Are they going to kill me?’

The pause that followed was far longer than she would have liked.

‘It’s… complicated.’

‘That is _not_ helpful, Aeden!’

‘But it is complicated! Look… everyone here has heard what you did. They know you closed the rifts, and they’re grateful. I mean, some of them are terrified of you, but still grateful!’

Evelyn groaned, and buried her face in her hands.

‘They’re not going to mob you when you set foot outside,’ he continued, quietly. ‘But, there are rumours floating around?’

‘What rumours?’

‘The soldiers who found you in the temple. They keep saying they saw a woman in the Fade behind you. Some of them have got it into their heads that it was Andraste, and the villagers have started calling you her Herald.’

‘That’s insane,’ Evelyn muttered. _And_ , certainly not the rumour she’d been expecting - the one where she murdered the Divine and blew up a mountain.

‘The Chantry agrees. They want to stamp that out before it catches on, so they’ve declared you a heretic.’

‘Bloody Chantry. They never do anything in half-measures, do they?’

That, at least, drew a chuckle, something more like the carefree brother she remembered. Aeden shook his head in amusement, and Evelyn let hers fall back against the wall, silently contemplating before asking the ceiling:

‘What now? Could we… could we leave?’

‘We could try,’ Aeden nodded. ‘If you want to ride for Ostwick, I’m with you. But the Chantry wants you in chains, and that glowing hand of yours isn’t exactly subtle.’

Glancing down now, she noticed for the first time that the mark on her hand was still very much there. It seemed quieter than it had on the mountain, pulsating numbly as green light occasionally crackled across her palm. There was no searing pain from it, and no sound.

‘The Seeker wanted to speak with you when you woke. She said she’d be in the Chantry.’

‘The Chantry. You know, since this whole _rebellion_ thing, I’ve kind of made a habit of avoiding Chantries.’

‘We’ll be fine. I don’t think she wants you dead, Evelyn.’

‘You said there were templars, too. What if-’

‘If anyone tries to lay a hand on you, they lose the hand,’ Aeden growled, picking up a longsword that had been resting against the side of his chair. ‘Templar or otherwise.’

Evelyn stared at him for a moment, wondering what had happened to her boisterous, reckless brother. For all that his physical form had grown, he seemed… smaller, that was the only word for it. His shoulders were up defensively, his head bowed low as he talked, not quite meeting her eye. Every muscle from his hands to his face seemed tight and tense as he stood, not relaxed and carefree like he used to be. Had the last few days done this? Or the last few years?

‘Alright,’ she nodded eventually. ‘Lead the way, brother.’

He nodded and went to unlock the door. As he did, Evelyn glanced down and began arranging her attire for… really the first time since before the Breach. She’d had more important things on her mind since then, to be frank. She tore off the tattered mage robes - with some ease, as they practically fell away - and tossed them into a corner, before straightening out the woollen tunic and breeches beneath. She spent a minute or two fixing her hair, sweeping the dark bangs her mother had hated out of her eyes, and glanced around for her purloined staff, but apparently someone had taken it. By the time she was done, Aeden had the door half-open, and was looking back at her expectantly.

‘…what?’ she snapped. ‘The Herald of Andraste has to look presentable, right?’

He sighed and rolled his eyes, before shoving the door open to a flurry of snow and cold wind. Quite suddenly, she regretted ditching the robes.

* * *

Haven was exactly as her brother had described it. A small Fereldan village of a dozen or more homes, all made of wood and thatch and nestled beneath the Frostbacks, guarded by a palisade of wooden stakes that circled the edge of the village. It was also, she noticed, home to many more people than those dozen homes would suggest. There was already a crowd gathered outside the door, and the moment she stepped outside, she could hear hushed whispers in the air. She remembered the looks the villagers had given her on her way up the mountain with Cassandra, but saw none of that hatred now, no cursing or spitting. She did wonder, however, if they would have been so restrained without her brother and his longsword stalking along at her side.

‘That’s the Herald!’ she heard a female voice whisper, though she couldn’t pick out the speaker in the crowd.

‘Her?’ another voice replied. ‘A mage?’

Evelyn shivered, and not solely because of the cold. She stuck a little closer to Aeden as they turned a corner, passing between rows of onlookers and now heading up towards the stone Chantry that sat on a ledge above the wooden houses of Haven, as if it were the shepherd overlooking his flock.

‘If the Seeker says it worked,’ a nearby voice wondered aloud, ‘why is the Breach still there?’

Her stomach jolted, and she looked up. True enough, the great green scar still hung in the sky above the Frostbacks, no longer growing but very much _present_. It looked duller, somehow, blending in ever so slightly with the grey sky. It was no longer spilling light or lightning, nor rumbling like thunder, and there was no spire reaching up from the temple peak to join it. Just a pale, shimmering patch in the sky, lined in acid-green.

As they climbed the stone steps towards Chantry, she noticed two sisters in red-and-white, clustered outside the open doors of the building with a handful of lay sisters in plainer dress. All of them were watching cautiously, and there was more fear in their eyes than there had been in the crowd’s.

‘The Chantry has forsaken us!’ one of the sisters whispered to the other, far louder than she had probably meant to. She was pale-faced, and young, expression fraught with worry.

‘Chancellor Rodrick is not the Chantry,’ the other replied, stern-faced and older. She bowed her head, ever so slightly, as brother and sister approached the Chantry doors.

Aeden said nothing as they stepped inside, still gripping his scabbard in one hand and apparently failing to feel the cold on his chest. A long hallway greeted them, bathed in warm candlelight and draped with Chantry banners, an Andrastian sun on crimson cloth. An elven servant bowed out of the way as they passed, and that was… uncomfortable. It reminded her of the times she had been Lady Trevelyan, not Enchanter Trevelyan.

Finally, they came to the door at the end of the hall, a heavy slab of oak with iron fixtures. She could hear raised voices beyond it, but they were too muffled to make out the speakers, or their words. Aeden paused with his hand on the door-ring, gave her a quick look of confirmation - she nodded - and then pushed it open with some force.

An argument was in full swing across a low, oval-shaped table of polished wood, in a small rectangular room with bare stone walls, and rather less adornment than she’d expected. Judging by the empty mantle at the back of the room, it had once been a place of prayer. Now, she saw Cassandra and Leliana on the far side of the table, along with the red-robed Chantry father they had argued with on the bridge, Chancellor Roderick. Two templars stood inside the door, guarding it, and the moment Roderick locked eyes with her he turned to them.

‘Chain her!’ he shouted. ‘I want her chained and ready for transport to the capital!’

Aeden went for his blade, with a slight scrape of metal as he went to free it from its scabbard. The templars, however, didn’t move. They looked instead to Cassandra, who waved her hand and muttered:

‘Ignore that order. Leave us.’

With the clank of metal plate, both men bowed their heads, crossed an arm across their chests, and left the room, shutting the door behind them. Evelyn put a hand on her brother’s shoulder, and he let the longsword fall back into its sheath, as Roderick turned to Cassandra.

‘I see you’re enjoying this newfound power of yours, Seeker.’

‘I am merely being _prudent_ with it, chancellor. We need her, regardless of your objections.’

‘She murdered the Most Holy,’ he snapped. ‘I order you to arrest this woman!’

‘You _order_ me?’ Cassandra echoed, disbelievingly. ‘You are a bureaucrat!’

‘I am Grand Chancellor of the Chantry, and you will-’

‘A glorified _clerk!_ ’ the Seeker roared, as Leliana winced behind her. The Nevarran had a stick up her backside, but it was rather gratifying to see her turn it someone else, Evelyn had to admit. As the chancellor balked, Leliana leant forward, interjecting rather more calmly:

‘She sealed the Breach, Grand Chancellor. Whatever power she possesses, it is rather wasted on the gallows, no?’

‘Sealed it?’ Roderick repeated. ‘It’s still up there!’

‘And it is no longer raining demons on our heads,’ Leliana pointed out, straight-faced.

‘Likely as she intended. The Divine is dead, the Conclave is destroyed. She alone survived, and now she has you fooled into protecting her!'

‘You survived,’ Aeden said suddenly, taking a step forward.

‘Excuse me?’

‘You survived. How many clerics died up there in the temple, while you were safely down the mountain? That must have done wonders for your station, chancellor.’

‘Are you _accusing me?_ ’

‘You’re accusing my sister.’

‘I won’t stand here to be intimidated by a thug!’

‘Then sit, or leave. I won’t stand to be threatened by an idiot,’ her brother growled, hand still resting on the hilt of his sword.

Before either of them could threaten anything more, or Leliana could intervene, a heavy impact shook the table, and silenced the room. Cassandra had slammed a tome as thick as her arm onto the table, a book bound in black leather and emblazoned with the same flaming eye as the Seeker’s armour.

‘Do you know what this is, chancellor?’

‘I have no doubt you’re about to tell me,’ the old man scowled.

‘It is a writ from the Divine, authorising us to take action.’

‘The Divine is dead, Seeker.’

‘Yet we survive, and the Breach remains a threat. We will act, whatever you think of it. We will gather our forces, we will employ whatever means are necessary to close the Breach, and we will bring to justice whoever is responsible, with or without your permission. _This_ ,’ - she jabbed the book with her index finger - ‘declares the Inquisition reborn. Run to Val Royeaux and tell them this.’

Roderick opened his mouth to reply, and was met with nothing but four glares from around the table. He closed it abruptly, scowled, and stormed out of the door without another word. As soon as he had gone, Cassandra seemed to deflate, shoulders sagging as Leliana placed a hand on one in wordless reassurance.

‘Ser Trevelyan,’ she muttered finally, looking to Aeden. ‘Find Commander Cullen, and tell him to raise the banners. We have work to do.’


	6. The Inquisition Reborn

 

It was quite impressive, really. Within hours of Cassandra sending the word out, the men and women of Haven had sprung into action. The pennants had been the first step - the sun banners of the Chantry had been lowered, from the sea of tents beyond the walls to the Chantry itself, replaced with the familiar burning eye, now punctured by a longsword. Inquisition scouts had been sent to scour the wintry wasteland around Haven, and the sturdiest of the villagers had gone to break ice from the lake for drinking water. An old forge outside the walls had been restored, and a grumpy smith named Harritt had set to work hammering iron into blades and shields. A quartermaster had set up shop outside the Chantry, and the stone building was now full and busy, not just with the clerics and lay sisters, but with villagers and volunteers who set about re-arranging the place, scribbling endless lists as they took stock of everything the Inquisition had to work with.

From her place near the apothecary’s shop, in the upper section of the village, Evelyn could almost peer over the walls and watch the sword drills being conducted in the camp beyond. She could certainly hear them, the ring of steel against steel, or against wood, occasionally followed by a commending cheer or a barked instruction to improve. It wasn’t a soundtrack she was used to, but it did give the place a sense of busy purpose. Everyone was doing _something_.

‘It’s quite impressive,’ she thought aloud.

‘Indeed,’ Solas nodded, standing at her side with his hands folded patiently behind his back. ‘Yesterday, Cassandra declared an Inquisition. Today, she appears to have an army. Or the beginnings of one, at least.’

‘She’s certainly… dedicated,’ Evelyn replied, struggling to be polite. The elf’s quiet laughter suggested her expression had given the game away, so she quickly changed the subject: ‘My brother says you kept me alive while I was unconscious. So, ah… thanks for that?’

‘If we’re to thank each other for doing what was simply necessary, then I thank for you stopping the demons from raining down on my head,’ he smirked.

‘I’m not entirely sure I finished the job,’ she sighed, peering up at the faded Breach.

‘You didn’t. But you did make an impressive start. You are aware what people are saying about you, I hope?’

‘Which part? That I killed the Divine, or that I’m some kind of prophet?’

‘Both. The “Herald of Andraste”, sent to save or damn us all…’

‘You’re enjoying this,’ Evelyn scowled.

‘A little,’ he admitted. ‘Though I confess to being curious as well. Every great war has its heroes. I look forward to discovering what kind you’ll be.’

‘We’re at war? That was quick.’

‘Not yet, perhaps, but soon. Whatever opened the Breach - _whoever_ opened the Breach - will not take kindly to being thwarted. You should be on guard.’

Silence fell over the pair of them, and Evelyn found herself staring up at the Breach for a minute or two. It was simultaneously horrifying and transfixing, like watching a wildfire. She knew it could have killed them all, but it still had some strange beauty about it.

‘I think I’d be the reluctant hero,’ she mused, eventually. ‘All doubt-y and sarcastic to begin with, but I end up saving the day all the same.’

‘Clearly, you read too many books in that tower of yours,’ the elf chuckled. ‘The real world is rarely so glamorous.’

‘Way to rain on my parade, Solas.’

Another chuckle, and the apostate just bowed his head. _Apostate_ … she caught herself thinking it, but they were all apostates now, weren’t they? Fiona and her Libertarians had seen to that. Evelyn had always preferred the Aequitarians, steady hands that somehow always seemed to be Fereldan, like Irving, or Wynne, or Rhys - calm, wise, introspective souls, not firebrands. They didn’t excite people with speeches or grand tirades, but they made everyone feel comfortable, and safe. That was something sorely lacking, these days.

‘I should not have detained you this long,’ Solas muttered, noting her distraction. ‘You were to meet the others in the Chantry?’

‘You’re sure you don’t want to join us? You seem to have a lot of advice.’

‘For you, certainly. The Chantry, on the other hand, fills me with a distinct unease. Cassandra has been quite accommodating, but you understand my caution.’

‘I share it.’

The elf gave a single lop-sided smile, and bowed his head in acknowledgement.

‘Give my regards to this new Inquisition.’

* * *

 

She met her brother on the path up to the Chantry, looking much more fit and rested than he had the day she woke up. He was still wearing a shirt to rival Varric’s, open at the neck and rolled up to the elbows, apparently impervious to the cold currently soaking into her own bones, along with riding boots and breeches, and now supplemented with a well-made sword belt that supported the longsword on his hip. There was a quiet smile on his face, and as he spotted her he hollered: 

‘Sister!’

‘Shouldn’t that be Herald now?’ she teased, as they drew closer.

‘Of course. Perhaps your Majesty as well?’

‘Arse.’

He grinned, and Evelyn allowed herself to laugh for the first time in a while. In spite of everything, it was good to have her reckless brother around, a friendly and familiar face amidst so many strangers. They wandered up the path to the Chantry together, and as they mounted the steps, she could see a crowd forming around the door, huddled close to watch some spectacle.

She could hear hammer blows on wood as Aeden pushed into the crowd, and when they finally made their way through the throng of onlookers, she spotted a man facing the door, clad mostly in warm, autumnal reds, with a brown fur cloak across his back and in the process of hammering something onto the door of the Chantry. It was a parchment, on closer inspection, with a pewter cast of the Inquisition’s eye at the top, and a matching seal in red wax affixed to the lower corner. As the man stepped back, she was able to read the first few lines:

 

As of the twenty-eighth day of Verimensis (or Wintermarch), in the

fourty-first year of the Dragon Age, by writ of the Divine Justinia V

 as witnessed by her Hands, Sister Nightingale of Orlais and Seeker

Cassandra Allegra Pentaghast of Nevarra, the village of Haven is

UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE INQUISITION.

 

‘So… too late to reconsider?’ Aeden sighed, eyeing the notice.

‘I should imagine so,’ the other man chuckled, wryly. ‘Good to see you again, Ser Trevelyan.’

‘Likewise, commander. I’d introduce my sister, but half the village seems to be singing her name already. She doesn’t need the help.’

Evelyn bowed her head as the commander turned to look at her, and- _Maker_ , he was handsome. A little pale, perhaps, but he had a chiselled jaw, perfectly covered in stubble that matched the blond hair swept back from his brow. Pale brown eyes, almost golden in fact, and just the right amount of scar, a diagonal slash that cut through the stubble on his upper lip.

‘Evelyn Trevelyan,’ she smiled, shaking his hand warmly.

‘I’m quite aware of who you are,’ he nodded, a tad… nervously? She hadn’t expected nerves of all things. ‘Cullen.’

Evelyn stared for an embarrassingly long time, in hindsight, though he didn’t seem to notice - or mind. She didn’t break eye contact until her brother groaned and rolled his eyes, stomping up the steps to the Chantry.

‘You two get acquainted,’ Aeden grunted, as she realised what she was doing and quickly stopped. ‘I’ll be inside.’

‘Did I… do something wrong?’ Cullen frowned.

‘Oh, _absolutely_ not,’ she smiled, stepping past him and into the Chantry.

* * *

 

The meeting was already assembled as she and Cullen slipped into the impromptu war room, the commander slamming the door behind them. Cassandra and Leliana were across the table, just where they had been the day before, and the Inquisition’s writ still rested at one edge of the table. Her brother was waiting as well, lounging against the wall to one side and slightly apart from the gathering. Besides herself and Cullen, that left just one other, an unfamiliar woman with dark skin, immaculate black hair, and a bright, wide smile. She was clutching a writing board complete with candleholder and inkpot, attired in a ruffled gold-and-blue dress that was rather… gaudy. Or, as Aunt Lucille would have put it, “Antivan”.

‘Herald,’ Leliana greeted her, with a slight smirk.

‘Why does everyone find that so amusing?’ she sighed.

‘Oh, I assure you, most of them are quite serious about it. I see you have already met the commander.’

She nodded at Cullen, who bowed his head with a polite if somewhat forced smile, and walked around the table to join the ruffled woman, as Leliana continued:

‘That leaves one more to introduce. May I present Josephine Montilyet, a dear friend and the former Antivan ambassador to Orlais.’

‘Charmed,’ the Antivan woman smiled, making a slight curtsey.

‘Likewise,’ she nodded, desperately trying not to think what Aunt Lucille would have said just then.

‘Josie is an accomplished negotiator, and well-versed in court politics. She will be lending the Inquisition a… _gentler_ touch while Commander Cullen deals with matters pertaining to our soldiers.’

‘Forgive me, Leliana,’ Evelyn frowned. ‘That all makes sense, and I know what _she_ does’ - she pointed to the armoured Seeker - ‘but what’s your role in all this?’

‘Oh. My work requires a degree of-’

‘Spymaster,’ Cassandra supplied.

‘…tactfully put,’ the Orlesian sighed. ‘To business, then?’

‘Our forces are very much a work in progress,’ Cullen began, suddenly business-like and stern. ‘Harritt and Threnn are already at work outfitting the soldiers we have, but we’ll need a steady supply of steel and some more hands in the forge to equip anything worth calling an army. The one thing we don’t lack is volunteers. Ever since the Herald stopped the Breach from growing, refugees and locals have been making their way to Haven to fight for the Inquisition. We have more men than swords, at present.’

‘The Breach may be more of a threat than they realise,’ Leliana sighed. ‘It appears to be dormant, but my birds have returned rumours of rifts like the ones we encountered on the mountainside, as far apart as Denerim and Val Foret. Sealing them all will be an effort of months, perhaps years, not weeks and days.’

‘The Breach is a threat - but the Chantry is our greatest obstacle at present,’ Josephine interjected.

‘How so?’ Aeden frowned.

‘As it turns out, Ser Trevelyan, threatening the Grand Chancellor of the Chantry has repercussions.’

‘Ambassador, do I detect a hint of reproach?’ he smirked, the smile not quite meeting his eyes.

Josephine just sighed, as if she were already exasperated. A good start.

‘As I believe you know, the Chantry has declared you a heretic - and now us as well, for refusing to turn you over to them.’

‘Roderick’s doing, no doubt,’ Cassandra grumbled.

‘The idea of a mage as Andraste’s chosen… perturbs them.’

‘I’m sure it does,’ Evelyn muttered. ‘But why is that more of a problem for us than the giant hole in the sky?’

‘One is related to the other, I am afraid. By every estimation, we will require more than prayers and goodwill to seal the Breach, never mind keep an army and Haven supplied. We will need food, resources, weapons, most likely lyrium and individuals familiar with its use. All of this requires coin, or favours, and both are hard to come by while the largest religion in Thedas is calling for our heads. Until we can reach some accord with the clerics, we will be relying on the aid of the desperate.’

‘So we need to make nice with the Chantry… or figure out who’s desperate,’ Aeden summed up, rising from the wall to join the rest of them at the table.

‘I may have a solution to both,’ Leliana chipped in. ‘Since the Conclave collapsed, Justinia’s truce has as well. Rogue mage-hunters and apostates have begun to terrorise the Fereldan hinterlands in particular. Templar deserters murder anyone they deem to not be properly aiding their cause, and the mages who have left Redcliffe are little better. The Arl of Redcliffe is a good man, but he appears to be… preoccupied, unable to defend his lands. My scouts have made contact with a revered mother who is attempting to aid the refugees there, in a village called the Crossroads.’

‘I know the Hinterlands,’ Cullen added. ‘We don’t have many men, but we’d have enough to hold them from Fort Connor to Lake Luthias. Drive the mages and the templars away from the Crossroads, and Redcliffe itself.’

‘Doing so may earn us friends in Ferelden. And this mother will know the Chantry hierarchy far better than I,’ the spymaster nodded. ‘Will you meet with her?’

‘If she can get them to stop calling me a heretic, sure,’ Evelyn sighed.

‘I’ll take that as a yes. Commander, have your men ready to march. I’ll send mine ahead with Scout Harding.

“Scout Harding”. There was a good name, Evelyn thought to herself. A solid, dependable- 

* * *

 

‘-dwarf?’

“Scout Harding” sighed, quietly putting a hand to her forehead, as behind Evelyn, her brother and Varric struggled to restrain their laughter. And the Herald struggled to remove her foot from her own oesophagus.

‘Wow…’ the little scout sighed. ‘Those are some impressive powers of observation. I mean… yes, ma’am?’


	7. Skirmish at the Crossroads

‘I’m… sorry about that,’ Evelyn was insisting, awkwardly.

‘It’s fine. Really. _Not_ the worst anyone’s ever said to me,’ the scout muttered, shrugging it off with a wave of her hand and a genuine smile.

Aeden was just enjoying the show, laughing it up at the back with Varric. He’d agreed to accompany his sister down into the Hinterlands, and the dwarf seemed up for just about anything. Cassandra had joined them as well, clearly feeling that there should be at least one responsible adult present.

They were in a makeshift camp on the mountain road into the Hinterlands, little more than a handful of tents and a campfire on a high ridge overlooking the Crossroads. About a dozen of Harding’s scouts were gathered around, re-stringing bows and cleaning bloody blades. As of yet, none of them had been entirely clear on how those blades were bloodied in the first place.

‘Regardless… it’s an honour to meet you,’ Harding nodded. ‘Hope you don’t mind us starting with you.’

‘Not in the slightest,’ his sister sighed, both of them quickly brushing their introduction under the rug. ‘What does it look like down there?’

‘Grim. I grew up in Redcliffe, and it hasn’t looked this bad since the Blight. Apparently the rebel mages are camped up in the village, but we haven’t been able to make contact. Something’s blocking the road.’

Aeden glanced at his sister, half-hoping to catch a reaction. Even on their way to the Conclave, he and his brothers hadn’t known if their runaway sister would be there, let alone what position she held with the rebel mages. Her face gave away nothing, however. She wore the same expression as everyone else: calm in the face but tense in the shoulders, desperately trying to keep some semblance of composure amidst all the chaos.

‘The only mages we’ve encountered are a group hiding out in the Witchwood,’ Harding continued. ‘We don’t know if they left Redcliffe, or if they were forced out, but they’ve been attacking anyone who sets foot in the area.’

‘Leliana said there were templars here as well,’ Evelyn said.

‘Deserters, we think. They’re camped south of the river, but they seem more concerned with harassing the refugees than clearing the Witchwood.’

‘One more problem to deal with, then,’ Cassandra interjected, breaking what had thus far been a studious silence. ‘The Chantry mother?’

‘Mother Giselle,’ the dwarf nodded. ‘She’s with a group of healers and lay sisters in the Crossroads, where the refugees are congregating. We didn’t get to talk for long, but she seems a good woman - our soldiers are securing the village, in case the mages or the templars feel like causing trouble.’

‘Take us to her, then,’ Evelyn concluded. ‘Once we’re done with that, we can see about clearing the valley.’

 

* * *

 

The Crossroads wasn’t a large village, no more than a dozen or maybe twenty homes, but it had swelled in recent weeks, by the look of things. Tents dotted every patch of common land: tucked between creaky wooden homes, set up on the verge in the centre of the village, and even in the shadow of the rocky hills that bordered the north side. Some were makeshift and ragged, others had the look of a military encampment, set up by the Inquisition soldiers now wandering amongst the nervous villagers. Amidst the poor villagers and the muted tones of the Inquisition’s armour, the Chantry sisters stood out like a sore thumb - half a dozen of them in the customary white and scarlet, either unafraid or refusing to show their fear in the face of the devastation that seemed to be facing the Crossroads. Even a newcomer could note the two or three homes that had been burned to the ground, the arrow- and sword-marks carved into various walls, and the makeshift graves on the eastern rise.

Far more surprising, at least to Evelyn, were the Circle mages. She spotted two, but she might have missed more, and as they came to the centre of the village - leaving Aeden, Varric, and Cassandra to check in with the soldiers - she and Harding found one tending to a wounded man on a stretcher, accompanied by a tall priestess in Chantry robes.

‘Don’t let him touch me!’ the man was howling, trying to wriggle away as the mage wove a simple healing spell, but finding no purchase with a shattered leg. The Chantry sister leant down beside him, gripping his arm firmly as she murmured:

‘Hush, child. Wielded in restraint, his magic is no more dangerous than your sword. Do you trust me?’ 

‘Y-y-yes…’ the man nodded, still not taking his eyes off the mage. What was he? A militiaman, perhaps?

Evelyn found herself stopped entirely to watch as the mage’s spell quickened, and the wounded man gave another howl of pain, almost bending double. The Chantry sister just squeezed his arm a little tighter, and placed a gentle hand on his chest to lay him back as he lost consciousness, leg still staunched in blood.

‘Thank you, Mother Giselle,’ the mage nodded, sighing wearily before he stepped away to tend to the next patient.

Mother Giselle didn’t reply. She straightened up, still watching her unconscious charge for a moment, before shrugging her shoulders and turning to face the two newcomers. She was an older woman with dark skin, Orlesian or Rivaini, and a light of recognition passed across gentle eyes as she spotted Evelyn’s companion.

‘Miss Harding. This is her?’

‘This is her,’ Harding said, with a nod. ‘I’ll leave you two to talk.’

The little dwarf disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared on the road to the Hinterlands - she was good at her job, at least - and Evelyn was left alone with the Chantry mother. Not always the most comfortable situation…

‘This way,’ Mother Giselle said eventually, gesturing towards a nearby house with a door flung wide open and inviting. ‘We have much to talk about, Herald, and little time to talk.’

Still silent, Evelyn followed her into the building. It was squat and simple, and perhaps belonged to one of the villagers at first, but now it seemed to be in the Chantry sisters’ possession. There was a low bed pushed against the left wall, rickety with moth-eaten blankets, and a washbasin on the far side of the room, half-full with water. Mother Giselle paced over to the basin, washing her hands with almost ritual solemnity, before reaching for a cloth to dry them and turning to face Evelyn, expectantly.

‘I notice you’re not afraid of the dreaded heretic,’ Evelyn muttered, breaking her silence.

‘You are far less terrifying in person, I must say.’

‘The other clerics may disagree with you.’

‘It would not be the first time. Do you remember the Fifth Blight, Herald?’

‘Not as such. The Blight never reached us in Ostwick.’

‘I was revered mother of the Jader Chantry at the time,’ Giselle murmured, with just a touch of wistfulness. ‘We did not see the Blight, but Jader sits on the border between Ferelden and Orlais. Refugees flooded into the poor quarters of the city, desperate men from the Bannorn and West Hill. Crowding led to famine, and famine led to plague…’

The mother continued to talk as she dried her hands and set the room in order, and Evelyn gravitated to the doorway, leaning against it and keeping one eye on the window. She was sure the story was going somewhere, but she was on guard all the same for the first hint of an alarm from her companions.

‘I wrote to the Chantry in Val Royeaux, asking for food and medicine to aid the poor quarters. They delayed and delayed, so we handed out our own stores, and went hungry for thirty days. Eventually, the Chantry relented. They sent us aid, but insisted we feed ourselves first, then the Orlesians, then the Fereldans, and finally the elves of the alienage, if any food remained.’

‘How charitable of them.’

Mother Giselle chuckled, and shook her head. Hers was a quiet laugh, somehow conveying age and world-weariness in little more than a short exhale of breath.

‘It is those furthest from the Maker who are most in need of His benevolence,’ she nodded. ‘We distributed what we could to whoever was in need - Fereldan or Orlesian, human or elf, it did not matter. It destroyed any chance I had of advancement in the Chantry, but I have never heard the Chant sung so loudly as in the poor quarters of Jader.’

‘Forgive me, but I assume there’s something more to this story than nostalgia?’

‘There is. The clerics of Val Royeaux speak often, and noisily, but they do not speak for all of the faithful. With no Divine, we are each left to our own conscience. Feed the hungry, protect the weak, and they will not care that a handful of clerics in Val Royeaux fear you.’

‘Fear? I think you mean hate, Mother Giselle. They want to _execute_ me.’

‘A rash action. But it is fear that drives them, I think. You must understand, your “Inquisition” bears a very old name. There was another such power, in a time before the Chantry, when the Imperium was collapsing and mages terrorised the land. The Chantry as it exists today was formed only when the Inquisition joined under its banner, becoming Templars and Seekers, and creating the first Circle. The first Inquisition was a symbol of the chaos that predated the Chantry, and to see it reborn would be to admit the Chantry has failed.’

‘Circles abolished, templars running amok, the Conclave destroyed…’ Evelyn counted off on her fingers. ‘Perhaps the Chantry _has_ failed.’

‘I sincerely hope it has not. All I know is this: some of the clerics are grandstanding, eyeing the election of a new Divine, but most are simply terrified. They lost many good people to the Breach, and have heard only frightful things of you. Give them something else to believe, and you may yet win their favour.’

‘How do you suggest I do that?’

‘You could start here. The Hinterlands have suffered greatly in recent months, and Ferelden remains too weak from the Blight to end the fighting. The Arl of Redcliffe is displaced, the king and his queen are too wary of the civil war in Orlais to commit their forces. Your men have done much good for us here. If you were to rout the deserters and apostates, and bring order to the rest of the valley? That may be enough to calm some of the clerics.’

Evelyn wanted to ask if “calming” the clerics would get them to stop naming her a heretic or calling for her head, but she held her tongue. Mother Giselle was pleasant enough, if a little idealistic. She reminded her of the younger sisters who would occasionally come to minister at the Ostwick Circle, full of fine ideas and enthusiasm, with none of the world-weight of the older clerics - or worse, the ambition. They rarely kept their enthusiasm to Mother Giselle’s age, though.

Slowly, as she processed all the revered mother had told her, she became aware of yelling in the distance, quickly growing closer. There were raised voices, hurried footsteps, and then the scrape of swords being freed from scabbards. Mother Giselle turned to the door with a look of concern.

‘Get the refugees inside,’ Evelyn muttered. ‘Your healers too - quickly!’

 

* * *

 

‘We’re really doing this?’ Varric frowned. ‘Fighting templars?' 

‘Templar deserters,’ Harding corrected.

‘How does that change anything?’

‘It makes me feel better about shooting at them!’

The two dwarves ducked in behind a stack of crates and barrels, Varric loading Bianca as Harding sent an arrow whizzing past him to deter one of the charging templars. A scout had come running down the road just a few minutes prior, shouting warnings and telling of a group of templars on the road. Cassandra had gone to parley with them while Aeden and the dwarves helped to get the refugees inside, and hid their archers amongst the buildings. Aeden wasn’t sure what had happened to Cassandra, all he knew was the templars were charging now, and the Inquisition were standing their ground.

These men were deserters, not templars proper, he knew that much. Most of them had salvaged breastplates, some of them templar helms as well, but they were supplemented with leathers, dark robes, and tattered cloaks, not full plate. As one of them rushed at the two dwarven archers, Aeden was able to chase him down, bowl him to the floor with his own armoured weight, and drive his longsword through the man’s back before he could stand.

‘We’re alright here!’ Harding shouted, ducking against cover as she reached for another arrow. Behind her, Aeden saw a rush of flame from Mother Giselle’s doorway as his sister entered the fray. ‘Go find the Seeker!’

He nodded, still weighing his sword in one hand as he made for the entrance to the village. As it turned out, Harding’s confidence in her scouts wasn’t misplaced. He saw one armoured templar stumble to the ground mid-charge as their hidden archers turned his back into something resembling a pincushion, and an archer on the far side of the melee _burst into flame_ at a yelled incantation from Evelyn. One of the knights turned towards her, raising an open hand to do something to the mage, but Varric had studded his throat with a crossbow bolt before he could finish the action.

Towards the edge of the village, however, the templars had the advantage. There were bodies from both sides on the ground, but the remaining Inquisition soldiers were outnumbered. A tall figure in uniquely immaculate plate armour was leading a half-dozen strong group as they encircled the Seeker and two other fighters in the middle of the melee, archers trading arrows over their heads. They were moving in concert, kept in better discipline than the reckless chargers who had made it furthest into the village. Cassandra moved with surprising grace, letting a blow slide off her shield before twisting and hamstringing the man who had struck it, but the soldiers beside her were less fortunate. One of them took a sword through the gut before he was shoved to the ground - the other succeeded in striking a mortal wound against one of the templars, only to catch an arrow between the shoulder blades as she did.

The rush of battle had seized Aeden’s gut just as it had in the Temple of Andraste, and he clutched his sword in both hands as he charged. A broad swing with both arms forced one of the templars out of the way, allowing him to put his shoulder down and throw all the weight of his sword and armour against the plate-mailed figure, the one he assumed was their commander. He slammed into the man’s shield, forcing him back a few feet, and felt rather than saw one of the other templars swing at his back, but the blow never fell. He heard the ring of steel on steel, and a grunt of exertion from Cassandra as she took the hit for him with her shield-arm.

That was all the invitation he needed to bear down on the commander. The carnage of a pitched battle was foreign to him, but a duel? Those, he knew. He swung in aggressively with both hands, ringing two blows off of the templar’s shield to keep him on the back foot. When the other man retaliated, thrusting his sword forward, Aeden ducked aside rather than waste his strength trying to block it. Instead, he brought his own blade up and around, and crashed it down on the templar’s forearm, hard enough to ring painfully through his armour. As his opponent tried to recover and lift his shield, Aeden flipped his sword around, gripped the mid-point of the blade with an armoured gauntlet, and hooked the cross-guard behind the edge of the templar’s shield, a trick his uncle had taught him. He wrenched the shield towards him, bringing the man with it, and dealt him a broad, heavy strike across the front of his helm.

The metal held, however, and Aeden was quickly realising that breaking through full plate was a good deal harder than beating a man in duelling leathers. He was dimly aware of the battle around them progressing, as Cassandra cut through another templar and more figures joined the fight from the village. A burst of heat on his back told him Evelyn had arrived, but he didn’t see her - his vision was fixed on the templar commander, and the commander’s on him. He rushed in again, shifting the longsword to one hand, but the templar was as good with his own weapons as Aeden was with his. His shield took both sword-blows without so much as a dent, and the plated fist that followed them, before he shoved the Marcher back and slammed the flat of the shield into Aeden’s helmless face. He felt the bridge of his nose collapse with a painful crunch, blood spattering his lips. His next swing was wild and desperate, the templar able to sidestep easily, bring his blade around, and swing it at Aeden’s belly, beneath his breastplate.

Instead of meeting metal or flesh, however, the templar’s sword was met with a shimmer of green light in the air between them. Aeden had never felt the touch of magic - he could count the number of mages he’d met on one hand, his sister among them - but now he felt it shimmer on his skin, the hairs on his arms standing straight up. In hindsight, he would realise a barrier of Evelyn’s making had halted the blade an inch shy of his gut, but in the heat of the fight, he only saw it freeze in place, the templar hesitating just long enough for him to grip it with a gauntlet, hold it in place, and take the templar’s throat out with a stroke of his longsword.

Aeden had been so preoccupied with his duel, he had barely noticed the battle winding down around them. Cassandra was in the act of running another templar through, as Evelyn struck one down with bolts of flame from her staff, and a group of archers advancing with her felled the rest. Fighting or fleeing, the deserters were brought down one by one until silence fell over the Crossroads, the exhausted haze after a battle now almost a familiar feeling.

‘Are you alright?’ Evelyn asked, spinning her staff idly in one hand as Aeden pulled a gauntlet off to try and stop his broken nose from pouring blood down the front of his armour.

‘A liddle more humble,’ he replied, voice distorted as he pinched it closed.

‘You fought well,’ Cassandra nodded, panting slightly as she wiped off her sword and looked around. Evidently that was as close as she got to a “thank you”.

He glanced down to the deserters’ commander at his feet, blood still trickling from the gash in his throat, then over to the small _pile_ of bodies around the Seeker. Shaking his head, he muttered: ‘I think five beats one, Seeker.’

She just shrugged, and went off to check on the Inquisition soldiers. Aeden was more concerned with stopping the bleeding from his nose - half his face was throbbing painfully now as the adrenaline faded - and his sister was leaning on her staff, looking around almost thoughtfully.

‘…I just set a man on fire. A few, even.’

It was almost amusing in its blunt delivery, but he could see the look of muted concern on her face. She wasn’t proud of it, or even excited. Nor shocked, nor scared. Just… realising.

‘Makes me wonder what they taught you in the Circle,’ he tried to joke.

‘Brother, we just killed a lot of people,’ she replied, apparently not in the joking mood.

He sighed, finally releasing his nose as the bleeding stopped, and spitting out a wad of thick crimson that had gathered in the back of his throat. ‘Pretty sure they deserved it. And I’m pretty sure they won’t be the last.’

‘It’s almost becoming normal, isn’t it?’

Aeden glanced down at the green mark still glowing on his sister’s hand - she was hiding it, consciously or not, keeping the palm pressed against her staff or her leg at all times. He looked to the two dwarves chuckling and joking as they emerged from their kill box in the village, and the Seeker of Truth marshalling their soldiers, who had been fighting at his back a few minutes beforehand.

‘Nope. Still strange,’ he grunted.


End file.
